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D'Oh Canada (continued)
After one more re-used shot of autumn colors, Short notes that one could get
the impression Canada is all about nature. But no, he says, they have some great
cities, and thus begins a tour of such. Victoria, British Columbia is shown via
helicopter fly-by.
Vancouver is celebrated by montage. Calgary's skyline is also shown by
helicopter. It occurs to me at this point that a great many of the new shots in
the movie were done by helicopter, not car-mounted or on the ground.
There is at
least one new shot on the ground, though: the Calgary Stampede. Short re-appears
briefly, tied up as though he'd been lassoed in the rodeo. Groan.
Up next, Toronto and its film festival. Quebec City also gets a montage.
The Montreal skyline concludes the city tour, and Short sighs, in French, "it
is very beautiful, no?" When the translation into English appears as a caption
on the bottom of the screen, Short says "thank you" and the caption changes to
"you're welcome." Didn't Short kick out the invisible narrator? The movie
certainly isn't stodgy, but what will age worse: a movie that looks stale, or
one that induces groans?
Cirque du Soleil is shown next.
Short points out that Canada is the birthplace of many famous celebrities,
and many of their faces rotate into view on the screen. This sequence is a
mistake. The film was last updated in 1982, which is a quarter of a century ago.
In a quarter of a century hence, will all those faces be recognized by a
majority of visitors? What happens if they are involved in a scandal or crime?
They should strive for timelessness, not topicality. (Unless they plan to update
the film every few years, which I doubt was their original intention.)
For that matter, celebrity narrators have a short lifespan. Bill Nye, anyone?
It's a marvel that Ellen DeGeneres is still part of the Universe of Energy.
Disney parks create timelessness and escapism by AVOIDING celebrities, not using
them. One of the brilliant choices in making Star Tours was to not show any of
the famous humans from the 80s. We see the 'droids, which are famous but somehow
timeless, and Star Tours thus holds up better than it would if we saw Mark
Hamill's face on the screen every few seconds.
Wait a second... if we
wanted an egotistical Canadian star, we should have gotten Shatner!
Short transitions by commenting that the regular people of Canada are the
real stars, so we see a few of those.
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